Baroness Adele of Beaumont

Baroness Adele of Beaumont (1067-) was the wife of Count Etienne of Blois and the mother of Stephen of Blois, king of England from 1135 to 1154.

Biography
Adele was the daughter of William the Conqueror and Matilda of Flanders, and Adele and her brother Henry I of England were the youngest of William's children. She was highly-educated and spoke Latin, and she married Count Etienne of Blois as a part of a political alliance to the House of Blois in Normandy. Etienne was a participant in the 1096-1099 First Crusade, and when he returned home in 1098 during the Siege of Antioch, she convinced her husband to go on a second voyage to the Holy Lands to resume the crusades. He was killed at the Second Battle of Ramleh in 1102, and her son Stephen of Blois became the new count. Adele lived to see her son be crowned as King of England on 23 December 1135 after the death of her brother Henry, whose only son William Adelin died in the sinking of the White Ship in 1120. During her son's reign, she had no role in politics.